Play game
Heartstrung's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Playability | #1 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
| Community Choice | #2 | 3.938 | 3.938 |
| Theme Implementation | #2 | 4.625 | 4.625 |
| Artistic Style | #4 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
| Overall | #4 | 4.075 | 4.075 |
| Game Design Document | #44 | 2.812 | 2.812 |
Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Link to your Game Design Doc on Google Drive.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NBAE4yUR0OnNktQbQXNd4ZaR1uQHoJh9qbBlGtu9H24/edit?usp=sharing
Have you checked that your GDD is publicly accessible ?
Yes
Is your game set to public on itch.io so we can see it?
Yes
Summarize your game!
Mechanics: Move and jump to platform. Utilize interactive objects to solve puzzles. Controls are in the page description.
Narrative: It's a game about life. Difficult, sometimes unfair, and you're forced to give up part of your life in order to progress.
Please explain how your game fits the theme.
In order to progress, you need to give up a limited number of lives and do so carefully as to not lose. To win, you need to willingly give sacrifice.
Did you use Generative AI to make any assets in your game?
No
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Great job on this. I found it reminded me a lot of "Citadel" an ancient game on the BBC Micro (ask your great-grandad about that one).
Graphics were clean and elegant, platforming was smooth, and the puzzle element was just in the right place between challenging and frustrating. Learning where the best places to use one of your limited lives is a great idea for the puzzle, with you running out of lives and starting again, and then suddenly you're able to go much further much quicker. It's a very engaging game loop, and I like this a lot.
Managed to beat it after 4 attempts. I only kind of like the main death mechanic. It works well and is intuitive once you understand that dying is part of the solution, but forcing the player to kill themselves over and over when they only have 10 lives and don’t know how many forced deaths await them is pretty stressful.
The part that kept messing me up was the second body of water after blowing up the pipe. If you dont jump far enough on the initial bomb explosion you’ll end up having to waste a second life when you walk all the way back because you can’t reach the other side. The fact that you can’t see the blast radius of the bomb makes it feel like you have to guess at the detonation distance which can mess up your jump.
The visuals and sfx were exceptional. I think this game has the single most satisfying switch sound effect I’ve ever heard. Great job on creating something so tight and polished for the jam. I honestly forgot I was playing a jam game while I was locked in trying to nail the jumps
The best feedback I could get is that you were invested enough to play through to the end :) tysm <3
Yes, the difficulty and uncertainty and stress are maybe elements that we tend to polish away, but I felt was important for the experience I wanted to convey. I’m really glad you pushed through despite that, and I appreciate the detailed feedback, it’s always lovely to get insights like these ^^
Ty for playing!